The ability to measure surfaces and objects in 3-D is becoming increasingly important for many fields such as autonomous vehicle navigation and obstacle detection, quarry mapping, landfill surveying, and hazardous environment surveying. The current state of the art for scanning mechanisms is unable to meet the demand of many of these applications. Typical scanners are slow, unable to measure with an unobstructed view and inflexible in their ability to use different types of range sensors. The present invention overcomes these limitations and provides a system that will meet the existing demand for more advanced scanning mechanisms.